Effects of Rain
Rain changes a neighbourhood in minutes. A drain that cannot cope, a corner that always floods, a footpath that turns to mud — these small, local effects are exactly what national weather data misses.
In this research you will document what rainfall actually does where you live. You will photograph the effects you can see after rain, describe factually what each photograph shows, and then — in a separate step — analyse what your photographs, taken together, reveal about rainfall, water, infrastructure, and the people who live with both.
Your submissions join those of student researchers across the country. One photograph is an observation. Hundreds, described the same careful way, become evidence.
Describe the facts
In this stage you are a camera with a notebook. You record only what can be seen. No causes. No blame. No conclusions. Those come in Stage 2 — and they will only be as strong as the facts you record here.
For each photograph, complete this evidence card:
1. Title — a short, plain name for the photo (e.g., "Standing water at the mouth of a roadside drain"), not a dramatic one (not "Drainage disaster!").
2. Where — street or area, and city. General location only.
3. When — date, approximate time, and time since rainfall ended (e.g., "about 2 hours after rain stopped"). If you know roughly how heavy the rain was, say how you know (your own Rainflower gauge, a public forecast, or simply "heavy, by observation").
4. What is visible — describe only what the photograph shows, in 3–6 sentences. Useful habits:
- Use size references: "water reaching halfway up the kerb," "a puddle roughly the width of the road," "mud covering the footpath for about ten metres."
- Name what you can see, not what you assume: you can see leaves and plastic at a drain opening; you cannot see that the drain is blocked underground.
- Include the ordinary: if traffic is moving normally through the water, or a shop is open beside it, that is a fact worth recording too.
5. What the photo cannot show — one or two sentences. Every photograph has limits: it cannot show how deep the water is, how long it stayed, what is inside the drain, or whether this happens every time it rains. Naming the limits of your own evidence is a mark of a real researcher, not a weakness.
Check yourself: read each description and ask — could another student, holding only my photo, agree with every sentence I wrote? If a sentence needs my opinion to be true, it belongs in Stage 2, not here.
| Example | |
|---|---|
| ✅ Factual | "Water covers the road from the drain opening to the opposite kerb, approximately 4–5 metres wide. Leaves and plastic bags are visible at the drain grate. Two rickshaws are passing through the water." |
| ❌ Not factual (yet) | "The drain is completely blocked because nobody cleans it, so the whole road floods and it's dangerous for everyone." |
The second sentence may even turn out to be true — but it is a claim, and claims must wait for Stage 2, where they need support.
Analyse the evidence
Now step back from the individual photos and ask: what do they show together? Follow the evidence rule: Describe first. Compare second. Explain third. Claim only what the evidence supports.
Write your analysis in five parts:
1. Patterns (Compare). Look across all your photos. What repeats? Do effects cluster in low-lying spots, near certain kinds of drains, on unpaved surfaces, near construction? What is different between the places that flooded and any that drained well? Refer to photos by their titles.
2. What the evidence points to (Explain — carefully). For each pattern, offer your best explanation of what it suggests about:
- Rainfall — intensity, duration, how quickly effects appeared or drained away;
- Infrastructure — drains, road surfaces, footpaths: present, absent, overwhelmed, or working;
- Water — is rainwater here a hazard, a nuisance, a wasted resource, or all three? (Water flooding a street while households nearby buy drinking water is itself a finding.)
- People — what your photos show about how residents live with these conditions: paths people have made around water, goods raised off the floor, business continuing as normal. If you spoke with residents (with permission), report what they consider the biggest problem — their perspective is evidence too, and it may differ from yours.
Match the size of each claim to the size of your evidence: "water accumulated near three drain openings after heavy rain, and debris was visible at each" is defensible; "the drainage system has failed" is not — not from photographs alone.
3. Alternative explanations (required — at least one). For your strongest conclusion, ask honestly: what else could explain what I photographed? (A burst pipe rather than rain? A one-off storm rather than a pattern? Construction debris rather than neglect?) Say what evidence would separate the explanations.
4. Limitations. What can this photo set not establish? (One day, one neighbourhood, one rain event, no depth measurements, no view underground, no before/after comparison...) Be specific about your set, not limitations in general.
5. The next question (one). End with a single, concrete question your evidence raises that a future study could investigate — and what kind of evidence it would need (rainfall measurements? repeat visits? resident interviews? a drainage inspection?). This is how your CRA feeds the next turn of the LEAP cycle.
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